Yep I agree Jamesmac
Data i knew of but Ray Ayanami was new to me - I've took a quick look and I get what you mean about the extension of "artificial human" to wider possibilities. Thanks for introducing that to me. :-)
By way of exchange there is a character in a series of sci-fi books written by Sir Terry Pratchett and Steve Brooks - "The Long Earth" i'd like to share.
Lobsang is an artificially intelligent supercomputer who is legally recognised as a human being because he is the reincarnation of a Tibetan motorcycle repair man. :-) This gets around AI not being recognised as being human because of the legal hurdles!
Lobsang is the main helper of the main human character (Joshua Valienté) in the books - hmmm... seems familiar!
Both Lobsag and Joshua are autism coded in my opinion too.
Hehe, Lobsang for a laugh sometimes disguises his avatar as a soft drink vending machine :-)
Here's my version: "anyone fancy a drink?"
I started with the first "discworld" novel over 40 odd years ago, I came back to the series a few later "dipping in and out" of the sequence until I was hooked (they get better and perhaps more sophisticated as the author gets his world up and running in my opinion) and eagerly awaited the next until sadly no more could come. With side journeys into Sir Terry's wider catalogue that were fun too.
They are funny yes. With plenty of "easter eggs" to discover - funny with great twists on plenty of existing tropes and stories from an author with an enormous amount of humanity.
Hehe can you tell I'm a fan!
I started with the first "discworld" novel over 40 odd years ago, I came back to the series a few later "dipping in and out" of the sequence until I was hooked (they get better and perhaps more sophisticated as the author gets his world up and running in my opinion) and eagerly awaited the next until sadly no more could come. With side journeys into Sir Terry's wider catalogue that were fun too.
They are funny yes. With plenty of "easter eggs" to discover - funny with great twists on plenty of existing tropes and stories from an author with an enormous amount of humanity.
Hehe can you tell I'm a fan!